California and others trying to shorten the work week to four days

Was browsing the news and came across this article:

Link

Now, I am a huuuuuuuuuuge proponent of the four-day work week as I currently do this at my job. Let me tell you; it is really nice having a three-day weekend because you can actually do stuff, go places, and have a bonus day to yourself and your family, and really get relief from your job. It's nice not having to scramble and think "OK on Saturday I'm going to do this and then Sunday I'm going to see my parents and then.... ah crap ....then I have to go back to work!"

What I am not a proponent of is making the week only 32 hours, as the bill describes. I feel people should work four 10-hour shifts to compensate, I think that'd be meeting employers half way, while at the same time not lessening wages for hourly employees.

The concern I have is that they'd force employers to increase wages by a significant margin (by raising the hourly minimum pay) and this would discourage growth.

But I think it can be done if we still work 10 hour shifts. It's really awesome and I think employees should be in favor of it.

Anyway, how do you feel about it?

*moved to political gamers since this deals with politics, economy, etc..

I agree with you. I also enjoyed the 12 hour shift because it gave me 8 hours of overtime a week. I really enjoyed the night shift.

Pffffft. Any excuse to get out of work.

In all seriousness though, I think it’s a good idea. Everyone is tired mentally I think. Would be good to cut it down to 4 days a week.

I think work culture in the US is shifting, thankfully. With 30+ million people retiring in the past year or two, employees will have a lot of negotiating power (I hope).

The fight is going to be between the old guard and the future, hopefully we don't get a lot of the "well I had to work five days a week why shouldn't you?" types. I don't want to read any articles about how we complain about five days then go and eat avocado toast 😂

Overtime and exhaustion are no longer the badge of honor they used to be, and I think people are finally learning that they simply don't have the buying power their parents did, no matter how hard they work. Adjusted for inflation, the average American worker is spending more time at work, earning less, while at the same time things cost far more than they did decades ago.

We need to get our benefits and so on in other forms; I think a four-day workweek is one of those ways. Time is going to become as valuable as a wage, I think time is going to be appreciated more for its intangible values, and less focus on "time is money".

Yeah I am working nights right now.

It's a 10 hour shift, plus I am solo so I get a bonus hour paid since I don't take lunch, plus I usually work 30-45 minutes of overtime from arriving early and staying a bit late. An on top of that they give us a 4-dollar shift differential on top of my hourly rate (to incentivize).

All in all I'm making an extra 400-500 dollars each check on top of what I'd be making if I was working days. Works out really nice.

I don't feel 10 hour shifts really hurt your overall daily rhythm either. I mean if you work 9-5, what else are you doing with your time that you can't do if you work 9-7? Watch two more hours of TV? Nah I'll take an entire extra day off, thank you very much.

Shit, I'm in IT so I'd settle for not being exempted from overtime laws. We regularly put in the time of two employees for no additional pay, and it's just an accepted fact in the industry.

@mattbbpl: How or why do you not get paid for overtime? Salary?

I dont mind working, I also don't mind being at home, but I hate commuting.

Because "computer professionals" (#4) are exempt from overtime laws:

Link

I'm curious as well. Maybe something to do with being contracted workers in most situations?

You'd have to pay me a lot more than my hourly wage says I make to go to a salaried situation. Overtime is too common for me.

My brother-in-law commutes up to 2 hours one way a few times a week. It's nuts. You'd have to me over 200k for me to even consider taking a job with a four-hour daily commute. And it's not an easy commute, either, it's SF Bay Area commute.

Which brings up another point: a four-day work week would do wonders for the environment and people that commute. One whole less day of people on the road. Fewer accidents.

I mean I am sure some places that work 24/7 would adapt (like my place of work does) but a lot of business would probably just be open four days a week. There'd be less wear-and-tear on the road as well, cars would last longer, etc.

Honestly I see nothing but positives for just about everyone. Employers would face some minor obstacles but nothing that wouldn't be too challenging to overcome.

Another problem in the bill is working four days and getting paid for five. No company will accept that. Most union contracts state you are paid for hours worked which also involves overtime which is clearly spelled out in federal law. Before I finally retired I had an arrangement where I only worked three days a week with no benefits, as a result my hourly rate was substantially raised and I really liked the arrangement.

Another nice thing about this bill is that you get a lot less of those 30 minutes before the end of work stuff. I find it really difficult to work on more complex tasks. If I know I will be interrupted and forced to go. sometimes in the middle of a difficult calculation. I really hate that.

You can have a 4 day work week while still having 40 hours.

True (as I said, I work four 10-hour shifts) but the bill says 32-hour work week.

At the risk of arguing against myself, I admit that has me kind of worried this won't pass because that is a huge drop in hours, and if these people are still getting benefits, the cost-per-employee increase PLUS they might have to hire more people which further adds to the cost.

I'm curious what people think of 10-hour shifts and if that's an OK tradeoff; four tens instead of five eights. As someone that does four tens, it's really nice gaining that extra day off.

Are they just trying to redefine full time as 32 hours, because I guarantee you that people are still going to be working 40+

Wow that's a load of bullshit.

Then again they do the same thing to seasonal agricultural workers. Imagine my surprise after working 60-hour weeks picking grapes during harvest to find I didn't get any overtime.

Hmmm. Maybe.

California is expensive to live in so unless they have a plan to get people compensated better and get housing/rental prices down. Plus, the work I do is very labor intensive and I was doing 4x 10-hour days and it quickly led to injury and exhaustion. Might be great for less intensive jobs but for me I spend those extra days between work sleeping and resting without energy to get out much in my free time.

@mrbojangles25: indeed. Work and time balance I think are key. You gotta have a job you enjoy.

But I think when the inevitable sectorial shift comes, a lot of people are going to have to “adjust” to the new realities. That’s the tough part.

Well you probably have a point about the 10 hour work days. It seems like forcing it down to 32 is taking money from people. At $14/hr minimum wage, that's close to $450 less per month. And forcing employers to pay more in those 32 hours is only going to make more businesses move to other states, leaving Californians in a very bad situation.

Yeah I'm personally not okay with giving my employer 5/7 of my days.

Yep. I am exempt from OT. And if they are pressuring you to work more than 40 hours when exempt that shit is fucked up, IMO. At least they should provide some incentive pay to finish projects or something (not like the gaming industry tho where projects can go out several years).

I'm a fan of working about 25 hours a week and making 6 figures a year.

4 working days is good if only everyone gets it. I am working with multinational clients and really irks me the delayed time to get a reply. Leads to even more loss of efficiency if I am working only 4 days yet my counterpart half around the world away expecting reply by friday and shipments moved.

Though I am not really against it I also wants more off day lol. Just that the situation described means I will have to engage clients during my day off, I rather just work.

Sign me up for the 12 hour work month making 6 figures a year.

It's good intention but the main thing for me about the law is that it gives more flexibility. Even if I spend 32 or 40 hours at work, it doesn't change the extra training stuff I do, over the weekend on my own that's about 10 hours. My second job hours I put 15 to 25 hours a week into. Or my 7 to 8 hours at the gym per week, which in some ways is harder than my job.

Many people work much harder than I do though, they have families to take care of, young children, elderly parents and other familh commitments. That's on top of their regular job, a side job, going to the gym, groceries. Luckily I am still able to get a good 7 to 8 hours sleep. These people wake up at the ass crack of dawn and get only 4 hours.

So when they say 4 day work week, I only see flexibility to allow you to shift more energy into other things. I'm guessing most people see it the same way.

@blaznwiipspman1: Main job and side job? Main job not paying enough?

Anyway shorter work days or a 4 day work week is coming. The benefits of ever increasing production from our work should also come us, the workers.

@horgen: yes thats part of the reason, though I'd still work a side job either way.

And if we're getting 4 day work weeks, that's fine with me as long as the pay is the same or more. Not less.

I've worked both 4 and 3 day weeks and going back to 5 is difficult to justify. No doubt more civilized countries should start to push for shorter work weeks.

Wouldn't help me. Work Monday through Saturday and I'm commission only. Working less days means getting less appointments. Which means I make less money.

That is correct working four ten hour day give you forty hours. I don't believe the authors of the bill had that in mind.

Corporations are going to provide the bare minimum of 32 hours or less a week, trust me.

I work 4 days a week all the time. Then some weeks I work 5 1/2 day weeks for some weekend time (IT stuff). It depends on the job and what your manager expects of you. At a certain point you get diminishing returns and a 35 hour week makes most sense. Keep your people fresh and alert and you get the best work. Having them work 50 hour weeks and it leads to burnout and you lose them.

People need to log off and realize that work isn't your life. I suppose I'm privileged to work for a company that already realizes this. So yeah, I fully encourage a 4 day week implementation where it makes sense.

Seems like it would make people get more jobs at once.

Yeah, but the people that need two jobs probably already have them.

Which is crazy; no person should have to work two jobs. With that said, this would certainly make it a little more manageable for those that do have two jobs.

Some office kind of jobs ( like where they normally work 8-16 mon-Friday) in my country has already started experimenting with that, and funnily enough it has turned out that people actually manage to do the same amount of work in 32 hours than they used to do in 40 hours! So definitely think it’s coming!

Not sure it’s going to be substantially in production kind of jobs as I guess these type of jobs usually needs to have the machines running around the clock. Same with service jobs where you can’t just start working one day less every week… but for office jobs I definitely think this is the future

What a big problem here is we have two things California is attempting to do to businesses ran in the state. There is a constantly rising minimum wage, now one of the highest in the state, and that, as well as other regulations have lead to the highest costs of living in the state as well, and these two forces are almost always going to cancel each other out demanding higher and higher minimum wages to cover some ideal for a "living wage" that is constantly going up because of the legislation that supports it. So companies are being told they must pay employees within the state more than they would in any other state.

Now they want a 4-day work week so not only are they expecting these companies to pay more, but for only four days a week. This means the dollar per hour for labor goes up even more to a point that it simply won't be worth it for any business to do business inside the borders of California. We have already seen countless businesses leave the state and take those jobs with them which makes the tax burden of paying for all the state's nonsense fall on what little working class remains, this will definitely lead to more businesses leaving, and California is just going to end up being an empty void with no jobs and apartments nobody can afford.

Now, you can try to make the case for how you may think it is better in theory, but the fact remains you're asking businesses to pay employees a hell of a lot more for less work simply because those employees work and reside in that state. I cannot think of a faster way of getting rid of all the good, high paying jobs as quickly as possible. The leadership in California will just blame the economic disaster that follows on the "1%" and "evil corporations" rather than stepping up and admitting responsibility for it, which they will pretend they're going to fix with even more regulations and legislation, and the problem is just going to snowball.

California as a state is in a race for the bottom. And the ones who will suffer the most are those who cannot afford to leave.

@eoten: Jobs that go to 4 day work weeks are not minimum wage jobs.

Yeah the housing prices are pretty bonkers, but I don't see how it is in a "race for the bottom" in general.

It's something like the 10th largest economy in the world, and that's not changing anytime soon.

The issue is the bloat; as the most populous and most prosperous state in the union, there's a lot of waste going on. Nevermind the far left crazies and their social programs, I'm just talking about the practical stuff like infrastructure, education K-12 (our universities, however, are awesome), and so on. We couldn't even build a high-speed rail line, pretty sad.

How is it not a race to the bottom? The issue cascades. Housing prices go up, cost of energy and fuel goes up, cost of food goes up, the whole cost of living goes up. How does California try to solve this? Try to force companies to pay people more, while expecting them to work less? How does that not lead to more companies leaving, and a large amount of job loss to go with that? Who would want to open up a new business under these conditions? And without these jobs, people are going to be lucky if they get to work a couple days out of the week part time, which obviously won't be enough to afford living expenses.

There's no way out of the mess without an almost complete reversal of the path they are on, which leadership in California has doubled and tripled down on several times over. Maybe even higher taxes to fund an even larger social safety net as more and more people fall under the poverty line? And who pays for that? People just barely treading water as it is? The ones who can actually afford to leave, as countless others already have?

Face it, it's a race to the bottom, and it's the far left ideology of bigger government, higher taxes, more spending, and increased hostilities towards business that have lead them there. Yet, the leadership there still live in expensive houses and mansions and eat out at 5 star restaurants. It's only going to get worse. Promising people 4 day work weeks and higher minimum wage is nothing more than buying a vote with the sale of empty promises so they can stay in those mansions eating at the fanciest of restaurants.

wait, you guys get overtime pay?

Dunno if I should put it in here or in the Nintendo PG thread, but yeah,

Either way, this was badly needed. Let's hope they delay Pokemon Gen 9 now. We already had Legends this year, and it was amazing. We dont need a Pokemon game every year.

Or the same deadlines with less time to work on games resulting in even more overtime and crunch. The truth is, games are not even as hard to make as developers like to complain that they are. Most games coming from the same publishers are often built on top of the same underlying engines. Developers are given a deadline, but let's be real, there's a lot of "slacking off" with most of the work being done in the 11th hour. Like a college kid having to write a report... "oh shit, it's due in two days? I'll have to stay up all night."

If one less day to actually work gets that out of their system and they actually spend the remaining 4 days doing actual work, you may see no noticeable difference in the time it takes to release the same quality game.

My point is that they are releasing an absurd ammount of Pokemon Games. We currently get one every year. This year we are getting 2. And the quality speaks for itself.

Gen 8 was flat out bad, and Gen 7 was forgettable, Gen 6 was nice for competitive play, but not much else.They are pushing out way too many games and the games clearly suffer as a result.

Pokemon are games with an emphasis on longevity. We can go through a few years without needing a new entry. I mean go to System Wars, and you will see people literally begging for the series to take a break. And I agree.

Legends was great, but not fantastic. Had they had a better schedule, the game could probably have been a legit GOAT.

That's true with any series that decides to push out a lot of games in a short period of time, trying to capitalize on their fan base. The last time I played a CoD or Assasshole's Creed game was Xbox 360 era because I got burned out on them. 4-day work weeks won't change that, the only thing that will is when gamers decide to stop buying them, but we have way too many people who refuse to miss a single release keeping practices like that afloat. Not to mention we have the "this is the only game I pay for micro transactions in" types fueling and incentivizing every game that does it.

It's the fans that need to change at this point. The companies are going to keep doing what earns them the most money, and that's why gaming as a whole has been in such a sharp decline lately. Clearly you've bought all the recent Pokemon games, so why would Nintendo slow down if you're not going to stop buying them? You sound like an alcoholic complaining about all the companies producing the beer he can't stop drinking.

Do it. Working from home has been the best thing ever and honestly, I don’t think humans are meant to spend the majority of their time working.

We are resting animals

Actually, we're not. And the more modern lifestyle has seen a sharp rise in health problems, many of which are related to obesity. If we were built to sit around and do nothing, we wouldn't become bloated disease bangs with a laundry list of health problems whenever doing so.

And the human body is designed to run.

Uh humans work less than they did in the past. Also animals work as well spending their day hunting for food.

Not necessarily. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that hunter-gatherers had more recreational time than modern humans. I mean, think about: you kill a deer or two, you're feeding a small tribe for a week. Gather some nuts and berries for an afternoon, you're good for a few days. Turn that deer, nut, and berry into pemmican? You're fed for months.

So what do you do with the rest of the time? You play, you sing, you sit around and eat magic mushrooms, you craft toys, and you draw on the walls.

Ironically it was agriculture and "sedentary" society that caused people to work hard. So yeah, while we aren't toiling as serfs in the fields for 12 hours a day for some king, we're still working the same hours and still causing the same stresses to our psyche in the work we do.

And honestly a lot of people still do work like serfs. Go work in a kitchen or some manual labor job, it's backbreaking and stressful labor.

Yeah I really hope employers keep the work from home thing going after COVID. It's been a blessing for members of my family, and frankly I would love to see some studies concerning productivity. Outside of the occasional meeting, as long as you meet deadlines....who cares if you're on-site or off?

No doubt it's just corporate paranoia, "oh if they're not here they're not working!". I'm sure some people are taking advantage of it, but that's why you have metrics, quotas, and deadlines.

I work on-site and I enjoy it, but I also work in a production environment so I have to work on-site. But I also write a lot of SOP's and stuff, and when I am writing them I can't help but think "Man, if I had my computer at home and my music and my comfortable chair, I could get this done in a few hours" but instead it takes me a few days because the computers at work are shit and I am constantly getting interrupted.

5 days is to long, 4 is perfect.

Thank god, I need that extra day to murder babies.